


Stay

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel in the Bunker, Domestic, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 18:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3299426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Castiel stays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

1 

“Stay,” Dean says, offhand, like it’s a matter of convenience—Cas is here anyway, after all.

They have just completed a case—a cursed object a few towns over—and Dean is making his homemade burgers to celebrate. Cas doesn’t have the heart to remind Dean that everything tastes like molecules to him now that he’s an angel once more, but, then again, out of all of the molecules to taste, burger molecules are his favorite.

So Castiel stays for dinner.

He must admit that he encounters more than molecules in the way that Dean and Sam banter playfully with one another in the kitchen, in how Dean runs a warm hand across his shoulder blades as he gives Cas a beer, in the tender manner that Dean assembles the ingredients and shapes the meat into patties. He will never cease to be amazed at the way that humans transform the simple and necessary act of attaining nourishment into something so intimate, warm, familial.

He wonders if he will ever feel truly a part of it, or if that strange feeling of being both inside and outside will forever characterize his interactions with humans—even with the Winchesters.

 

2 

“Stay,” Dean says, a casual suggestion, a “why not?”—Cas doesn’t have anywhere else to be at the moment, right?

Cas had stopped by the bunker to inform the brothers of a potential case nearby—a suspected nest of vampires that was causing trouble, which the Winchesters had agreed to look into the following morning. For now, though, Sam just completed setting up a DVD player and the brothers are about to embark on a _Star Wars_ marathon that seemingly holds ritualistic importance for Dean.

So Castiel stays for the evening.

His breath catches when Dean sits just a little too close to him on the couch, his jean-clad thigh pressing warmly into Cas’s own. He finds himself ignoring much of _A New Hope_ in favor of observing the way that Dean’s tongue juts out to lick at the traces of salt left on his lips by the popcorn they consume, and he can’t help but imagine what it would be like to lick it off of Dean’s lips himself.

By the time _The Empire Strikes Back_ concludes, he wonders if Dean, like Han, just _knows_ or if it needs saying.

3 

“Stay,” Dean says, and it’s a timid question rather than a request or demand, his voice creaking like a bursting pipe—Cas is a life raft, but whether Dean sees him as a temporary savior or as something more, Castiel is not sure.

Cas had been drawn to Dean by a deep pull of longing so fierce that he had immediately flown to Dean’s side—just to check on him, he assured himself. Nothing more, nothing more. He found Dean thrashing in his sleep from a nightmare and immediately shook him awake until Dean’s green eyes were boring into his, a silent plea to not let him return to whatever dark corners of his own mind he had just been occupying.

So Castiel stays for the night.

He wants to weep with joy when Dean tiredly lays his head on Castiel’s shoulder, and after Dean sinks back into sleep Cas whittles away the hours until dawn memorizing each detail of the way that Dean’s body looks curled against his own. He pretends to himself that he could have this always, that Dean hadn’t just needed him to get him through the darkness of the night, but that Cas could be there to guide Dean through all his darkest days as well.

4 

“Stay,” Dean says, and it is a demand this time, a stubborn “I won’t take no for an answer,” a “so help me, I will kick your ass”—Cas is too worthy an ally to lose, even with his fading grace, and too vulnerable without the Winchesters’ protection.

Castiel has just narrowly avoided being taken out by a demon wielding an angel blade, but not without some cuts and bruises. He tries to banish the thought that it had been worth it just to feel Dean’s practiced hands carefully cleaning and stitching up his wounds, his calloused fingers rough against Castiel’s skin, and he fails.

So Castiel stays for a week, which bleeds into two, and then into three.

He heals quickly—not angel quickly, but human quickly—and as his grace continues to burn out, food becomes more than molecules again. He learns to love the bitter tang of coffee until he can’t speak in the morning without at least two cups, the strange mixture of tastes when Dean places odd additions of ketchup and sriracha and salsa in his mac and cheese, and the slightly artificial flavor of apples processed into pie filling. He revels in each small touch Dean gives him—a graze of fingers as they exchange a knife, a spatula, a gun; shoulders pressed together on the couch; a too-long embrace after a close call on a hunt; knees sliding into one another under the library table.

Cas begins to feel less outside and more inside all the time. 

5 

“Stay,” Dean says, and it’s a prayer and a plea and a frenetic need, his voice thick through the tears—Cas is his hope and his light and his redemption and all of the things that Dean had always been to Cas but that Cas had never thought Dean could possibly see in him, too.

Castiel has just been presented with the final choice: die an angel, or live and die as a human.

He finds the answer in Dean’s lips as he kisses Cas for the first time, and with the desperate press of mouths Cas finally understands what Dean has meant by those four letters all along. He enfolds Dean in his arms and kisses him deeply as he wills the last vestiges of grace from his human body. 

And Castiel stays for the rest of his life.


End file.
